Permanent AP bars: it's time.

Unknown

So after about a billion times we've asked about it, the fact that necessary information is hidden by the UI(in the mobile versions) has been finally addressed.
Now, I know I should be thankful it's being addressed at all, all things considered, but in for a penny, in for a pound. The new ap bar is a significant step in the right direction. Now.

1) Give the player one as well.

2) Give us a toggle in the options menu to keep both on at all times (since you clearly find the idea both them being permanent abhorrent)

3) When one of the players gains ap, show +(number) in green right on the side of the color ap

Current ap for player and AI is 100% essential information. Anyone who doesn't constantly scroll to both sides is playing without available, important information. This is as relevant as health bars, and very often more so. I added 3) because it's clear you've been struggling with a decent way to display gained ap. Oh and also:

Mawtful

Our metrics show players enjoy the puzzle of not knowing how many resources their opponent has availalbe. Going forward, looking at your opponents AP gain or current AP pools will cost 17 HP. For ease of use, there will be no in-game prompt, this will simply be deducted from your totals as you play!

Unknown

Agree!

If not permanent display, then at least put the new slider for both player and enemy.

Or back to the old system where you see AP gain for that turn, so you can see the enemy getting 30+ AP in one go.
But apply old system to both player and enemy. Mobile scrolling is annoying.

This new halfway change is a bit rubbish, too quick and I'd miss the snapshots of those ridiculous cascades that we all suffer. Now I have to do some basic maths to see what changed. Ain't nobody go time for that!

Shrunken character models or a slight re-jig is all that's needed. Easier said than done of course, but the new slider feels like a waste of whatever programming time it took to implement. Permanent display is 100% preferable as often we're gaming as a part of multi-tasking whether watching TV, working or reading a paper, or even a cheeky go on the bog at work - that's prob not the best example. Permanent display is the way!!!

Please change it D3, pretty please.

FOADakaSquirrelBoy

Couldn't agree more. I can't for the life of me figure out why the bar is only there for the AI. Also, it's only shown for like 4 picoseconds as it is. I'm not that fast...

Punisher5784

I wish I could just play the game on my phone sideways, then I would be able to see everything!

Unknown

It was time for this a year ago, but they're too busy pumping out 3* & 4* characters to bother with something as simple as showing AP levels.

blinktag

As I've posted in the other threads on this topic url=http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29071]1[/url], [url=http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29052]2[/url, I'm okay with the "slide to view" totals, but as many others have said here and elsewhere, flashing the opponent totals every turn is too much. Please go back to differentials. (For both players!?)

I can understand why some players want full AP all the time. Personally, I think it's too visually distracting. However, is there a visual affordance for newer players to help make the slide-to-view more discoverable?

Heartburn

put a vertical bar in the middle of the screen with the characters on it with all the colors of AP and tu. on the player side, have numbers representing how much they have. on the enemy side have numbers showing how much they have.

JVReal

I think this slide viewer is just distracting, it shows me the current status of the enemy AP... ok... but I want to know the difference too. I just stole AP with OBW, but I don't know what I took or what I gained... it just flashes their current AP... unfortunately I don't have a photographic memory to take a snapshot of that glimpse from the time before.

Keep it visible the whole time, or please just show me the differential. When AI Hood is stealing AP from me, I don't know what he's stealing. When they get a cascade I don't know what they gained, just what they have... for a split second.

If you can't put AP on the main screen permanently, give both sides the differential indicators you used to give. Nice thought, but not quite useful. I feel less informed on enemy AP gain/usage with this little slide thing than before.

udonomefoo

JVReal wrote:

If you can't put AP on the main screen permanently, give both sides the differential indicators you used to give. Nice thought, but not quite useful. I feel less informed on enemy AP gain/usage with this little slide thing than before.

Yes, this. Good effort, going in the right direction, but not quite there. It's too fast and doesn't show what happened, just what's left. I got sick of constantly swiping to the right every move to see what they had and now when I'm feeling lazy I just play blind and get blasted by powers constantly. All you'd have to do to make me happy is remove the "snapback" that auto centers the screen on every move.

GritsNGravy

Yes this, if not permanent by default, please add an option. Also I'll through it here again, have something on the AP bar showing the strongest color to help with abilities that work on that like Surgical Strike. These small tweaks would save a ton of time over many games.

TxMoose

udonomefoo wrote:

JVReal wrote:

If you can't put AP on the main screen permanently, give both sides the differential indicators you used to give. Nice thought, but not quite useful. I feel less informed on enemy AP gain/usage with this little slide thing than before.

Yes, this. Good effort, going in the right direction, but not quite there. It's too fast and doesn't show what happened, just what's left. I got sick of constantly swiping to the right every move to see what they had and now when I'm feeling lazy I just play blind and get blasted by powers constantly. All you'd have to do to make me happy is remove the "snapback" that auto centers the screen on every move.

totally agree. it is less informative because you cannot even process the small graphic visually before it disappears. I have to slide to check ap much more often now, especially with goon feeder nodes - nothing like an adamantium slash out of the blue.

Malcrof

TxMoose wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

JVReal wrote:

If you can't put AP on the main screen permanently, give both sides the differential indicators you used to give. Nice thought, but not quite useful. I feel less informed on enemy AP gain/usage with this little slide thing than before.

Yes, this. Good effort, going in the right direction, but not quite there. It's too fast and doesn't show what happened, just what's left. I got sick of constantly swiping to the right every move to see what they had and now when I'm feeling lazy I just play blind and get blasted by powers constantly. All you'd have to do to make me happy is remove the "snapback" that auto centers the screen on every move.

totally agree. it is less informative because you cannot even process the small graphic visually before it disappears. I have to slide to check ap much more often now, especially with goon feeder nodes - nothing like an adamantium slash out of the blue.

the slash would be out of the red....

shatland

here i fixed it for you guys...


...with my worst photoshop job ever. basically just shrink the part of the image that scrolls to fit the width of the screen and add AP bars at both sides on the top. in this hasty shop job, the colors should be flipped on the enemy side to be consistent, but it was easier to just flip it in PS. also, you can (NEED to) add the slider that we had before to show how much player and enemy gains/loses in a turn and just have them "dissolve" into the bar at the top. you can still make either side (enemy/player) bigger for who's turn it is. remove the blue arrows on either side or keep them to cycle through enemies (guess you wouldn't need an arrow on the player side, though). this would be on an iphone 5S sized screen so if it can fit that it should fit just about any other smartphone. also the jewel area stayed the same size.

seems like an awfully simple fix.

thoughts?

EDIT: i realized when editing this screen i actually did make it taller than an iphone 5S screen ratio, that's why there's so much room at the top, but still seems like plenty of room to add this bar at the top.

EDIT2: did a more proper photoshop job with correct iphone 5S aspect ratio and both AP bars are "in order"

udonomefoo

I still have a 4S so that might not fit on mine, but if they do this I will finally have a reason to go upgrade. So please, devs, help motivate me to go get a new phone

Punisher5784

shatland wrote:

here i fixed it for you guys...


...with my worst photoshop job ever. basically just shrink the part of the image that scrolls to fit the width of the screen and add AP bars at both sides on the top. in this hasty shop job, the colors should be flipped on the enemy side to be consistent, but it was easier to just flip it in PS. also, you can (NEED to) add the slider that we had before to show how much player and enemy gains/loses in a turn and just have them "dissolve" into the bar at the top. you can still make either side (enemy/player) bigger for who's turn it is. remove the blue arrows on either side or keep them to cycle through enemies (guess you wouldn't need an arrow on the player side, though). this would be on an iphone 5S sized screen so if it can fit that it should fit just about any other smartphone. also the jewel area stayed the same size.

seems like an awfully simple fix.

thoughts?

EDIT: i realized when editing this screen i actually did make it taller than an iphone 5S screen ratio, that's why there's so much room at the top, but still seems like plenty of room to add this bar at the top.

EDIT2: did a more proper photoshop job with correct iphone 5S aspect ratio and both AP bars are "in order"

That's too easy for the devs, they rather spend their time playing with an assortment of different AP banners. Maybe sometime next year we'll have a permanent AP bar, but it will somehow block the enemy so you won't be able to switch whose in front.. this of course will be right before the start of a Gauntlet PVE on a Friday night.

Kolence

shatland wrote:

here i fixed it for you guys...


...with my worst photoshop job ever. basically just shrink the part of the image that scrolls to fit the width of the screen and add AP bars at both sides on the top. in this hasty shop job, the colors should be flipped on the enemy side to be consistent, but it was easier to just flip it in PS. also, you can (NEED to) add the slider that we had before to show how much player and enemy gains/loses in a turn and just have them "dissolve" into the bar at the top. you can still make either side (enemy/player) bigger for who's turn it is. remove the blue arrows on either side or keep them to cycle through enemies (guess you wouldn't need an arrow on the player side, though). this would be on an iphone 5S sized screen so if it can fit that it should fit just about any other smartphone. also the jewel area stayed the same size.

seems like an awfully simple fix.

thoughts?

EDIT: i realized when editing this screen i actually did make it taller than an iphone 5S screen ratio, that's why there's so much room at the top, but still seems like plenty of room to add this bar at the top.

EDIT2: did a more proper photoshop job with correct iphone 5S aspect ratio and both AP bars are "in order"

It could be just one AP bar with an indicator for both team's strongest color left and right. Tapping left makes bar show player's AP, tapping right the AI's and center shows AP on the board. It could even change as each side makes moves or stay persistant until manually changed.

Unknown

Kolence wrote:

It could be just one AP bar with an indicator for both team's strongest color left and right. Tapping left makes bar show player's AP, tapping right the AI's and center shows AP on the board. It could even change as each side makes moves or stay persistant until manually changed.

Nope. No tapping, no swiping, no dragging. Ap is essential information. It needs to be on screen.

Unknown

Your current AP is visible in your power bars mostly, if you need a number you can just tap that color on the board to see your current AP. Enemy current AP on the other hand, is must have info that is too often hidden/forgotten. I don't even care if you shrink the current play space by some amount, just to get something like this on the board:

00
00
00
00
00
00
00

Just have it be a permanent part of the right side. I don't care as much about player AP, but enemy AP should be visible.

ThatOneGuyjp189512

Maybe have an option to turn it sideways so it looks like the steam version? This wouldn't be realistic for phones but for tablets it'd be a godsend

Unknown

shatland wrote:

here i fixed it for you guys...


I have said this exact thing since 2013!